The Profection Project: Profecting from the Tenth House: A Humble Cultivation of Ingredients Offered to the Cosmic Soup Bowl (Part I)
The shifts that occurred after the birth of my son were tremendous and deep reaching. I still vividly remember one of the most significant turning points in the first year of his life when I was in a dark liminal space, referenced as my 12th house profection year from my sect light (natal moon). Holding my 20lb baby in my arms, I pulsed through squats (often for an hour or two at a time), standing in the bathroom of our one bedroom apartment, where it was quietest and darkest, trying to get him to sleep for nap or bedtime. I didn’t workout to snap back. My postpartum appearance was shaped out of exhaustion, sweat, tears, and being nourished by fast burning sugar and less sustainable sustenance, unfortunately. Looking good in a swimsuit does not equate healthy. Please remember that. We are not just meat suits with blood and bones, but so much more. My shen was parched and thirsty for the nourishment of sleep and consistent cooked meals.
One exhausting afternoon in February, I was there in that squatting space, sweat trickling down my spine, dripping down my ass and legs, breathing deeply and sometimes closing my eyes and going into a sort of trance like state. I was beyond exhausted, but needed the baby to nap so I could rest too. I felt more alone than ever in those days since we’d recently moved 1400 miles away from all family and friends to Connecticut for my partner’s job opportunity at a psychiatric hospital. He was often gone for 12 hours, sometimes more. I was being asked to be stronger than I ever had been or thought I could be.
That afternoon, I thought about how many other women, mothers, or parents might be doing the exact same thing as I was. Clawing their way through life, just trying to survive. All the hardships my own mother, and her mother, and my father’s mother had endured to bring us forward in life was clearer than ever. My mother mothered her 4 siblings as a little girl while her mother worked. This is a sort of natural order, but she did it without other family support and without a present father. My dad was back and forth between Puerto Rico and New Jersey with aunts and sometimes with my grandmother, as the eldest sibling of five. He had an entrepreneurial spirit from the start, but also got into a lot of trouble as a kid. The pattern of needing a village, but not really having one is obvious and also not uncommon. The mother wounds I had suffered still burned and ached to be soothed and healed so that the mother/child relationships going forward could be liberated from the cycles of pain that had been passed down.
At that point I hadn’t yet been to therapy. I knew I needed it. I wanted it. But I couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket and wasn’t sure how to find a therapist through our insurance company since I wasn’t trying to see a conventional cognitive oriented behavioral therapist or talk therapist. I even tried seeing a doctor about my Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (DMER) which I didn’t have a name for at the time, to get a referral. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what I was talking about and unless I was willing to self diagnose as being “depressed” I wasn’t getting anywhere.
Having a background in Chinese medicine, I knew I was severely Qi and Blood deficient. I knew the injury to Jing I had incurred from not having a sufficient period of rest after my son was born. I was well aware that this is common in a majority of mothers (at least in the US) and I yearned for a mother circle or a rapport with a practitioner that could offer the cushion of support that I couldn’t muster much of for myself in those days. I also knew, in my core, that it was the seed moment of a spiral. Visions of a wise, matured Ashley rose and showed me that I would one day, not too far off in the future, would be offering presence, connection, and some kind of gestures for healing. It was still muddled, not completely clear how it would manifest, but I kept circling around the notions of liberating the psyche (from cyclical chains of enslavement that happen through spiritual binding, possession by our ancestors, and lack of self reflection), nourishing the soma as an individual and social body, and freeing up the heart for authentic expression of spirit to flow.
My internal vision board was tacked with images of dancing figures moving to shake free from stress and trauma clogging up the channels and nervous system, temple spaces where mothers and sleep deprived could refill their cups through acupuncture, moxa, silent tea meditation and restorative naps, and dimly lit rooms where transformation of spiritual material could be ritually and alchemically spun back into place so that people could come back to their experience of what they are and have always been.
It was an inkling of the path my calling was leading me to. Three years later and I realize that it was in fact a premonition. It’s what I am now assimilating through education, through intentional engagement with the unconscious in dream work and therapy, and through everyday experience of my humanness.
Initially I thought this would happen through a Master’s of social work program, a PsyD in clinical psychology or a PhD in transpersonal psychology. These were programs I couldn’t actually afford to attend, however. They also didn’t demonstrate how I’d integrate my former experience in Chinese medicine and astrology, or my profound need for dance and movement, into a harmonious practice.
Part of me a was afraid to reclaim my place as a clinician in Chinese medicine because
I was much younger and naive when I graduated with my master’s and was not ready for the reality that it would take at least around a decade before I would start to see some semblance of financial sustenance and support from my efforts and dedication. I wanted concrete assurance that I could survive if I ever had to support myself commodity on my own— especially as a mother... this was/is ancestral and inherited trauma that held me back for years.
After being sexually assaulted (I played it down in my head Bc physically he just forced a kiss onto me— it wasn’t comparable to other experiences I’d had or to worse things people suffer— and I was too afraid to put boundaries up when asked to massage a client’s backside who insisted he be naked) I went into a sort of freeze state and imagined that the only people interested in what I had to offer were men or people who wanted to have me, not consult with me. All I did was give back his $300 payment and deposit for the treatment and future treatments and fire him as a client... I lost in every way.
I didn’t know where to start since resources to open a clinic were non existent for me and doing house calls again sounded scary after the former mentioned assault (which was a house call). I also appreciated the flexibility of writing from home and being around for my kids which I didn’t have much experience of growing up. Being a mother is number one. Resources have to work around that first and the integrity of the rest of my work will follow.
Fast forward through the pandemic of 2020-2021 and it’s become increasingly clear to me that the scope of my practice as a healer of the East Asian healing arts (for one) is not limited to the main two forms of treatment that TCM schools’ curriculum focuses on (acupuncture and herbs). There is a middle ground that is actually more holistic and well-rounded to practice from that is more workable for me and for my clients. Much of this centers around the astrological work I already do, as well as the practice of somatic based therapies that reflect, complement, and further support the tools and wisdom of Chinese medicine. I’ll share more about this one of these days. There’s no schedule, but as it arises I’ll share for natural conversation and reflection. I’m still waiting to witness how the 10th profection will unfold during the peak, in Cancer and Virgo season.